According to Statista, 78% of Americans are aware of podcasts and have listened to at least one. With such a large market, your organization could benefit from producing a podcast—but how do you make it successful? The answer varies by audience and topic, but here are a few golden rules to follow while crafting your podcast strategy.
- Do Your Research
When you start planning out the launch of your podcast, step one is to know your audience. Who is your target audience? What messages do you want them to receive? Set specific goals and develop a strategy to connect with them. Understanding these parts of the production process can help you succeed.
- Defining Your Brand
To stand out, your podcast needs to have a clear purpose that listeners understand. Make a point to remind the audience of the episode’s value in the beginning. This is also an opportunity to reinforce your organization’s mission statement and core values so that people know what they are supporting. Past that, if you use these values as a guide while developing episodes, it can help keep your brand identity consistent for listeners.
- What’s Next?
What do you want people to do after listening to your podcast? Should they follow for more episodes? Is there new content on your website? This is where setting goals for your podcast becomes important. Have a plan for actionable items for the audiences and include a call to action (CTA).
You can get creative with where you put these, but a good rule of thumb is to include one at the beginning of the podcast with your mission statement and one at the end as well. It’s easy to overlook the importance of explicitly communicating how to further engage with your brand, but CTAs are one of the best tools out there for connecting with listeners.
As the market for on-demand audio content grows each year, now is the time for organizations to start dipping their toes into the podcasting industry. Although producing a podcast can seem like a big commitment, plenty of brands are seeing massive returns on the energy they put into creating one, so why not give it a shot? If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to connect with and grow your audience in a more personal way.
References:
U.S. Podcasting Industry – Statistics & Facts. Published by Statista Research Department on October 26, 2021. https://www.statista.com/topics/3170/podcasting/#dossierKeyfigures
Podcast Statistics and Trends (& why they matter)- Published by Riverside on September 22, 2021. https://riverside.fm/blog/podcast-statistics